redhatslut

As we read in the documentation of WPMU:

"If your PHP is compiled with memory limit checks, the default is 8MB which is much too small. You should increase this to at least 32MB or 64MB to avoid PHP out of memory errors. Look for "memory_limit" in your php.ini file."

WPMU is some serious piece of soft, and it needs special care. Chances are that you have an average farm hosting and you don't have administrative access to your server. Depending on your provider, you may have no access to your servers php.ini files. ASK YOUR SUPPORT.

I will describe this problem as it is solved on Dreamhost.

We have no access to php.ini. We need to make a second php.ini for our domain. It will reside in the folder cgi-bin in root of our domain.

read the php_ini wiki on DH, Custom PHP.ini - DreamHost
IT will be similar for any other hosting. When you have set up you custom php.ini, edit it and for the beginning let's change:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Resource Limits ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

max_execution_time = 30 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 60 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 8M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (8MB)

to:

max_execution_time = 360 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds
max_input_time = 720 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data
memory_limit = 64M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (8MB)

It is just an example. Feeding rss scripts may take long time and 30 seconds won't be enough for them. They would display an error while executing.




Another file is .htaccess. It is a hidden file in root of your domain folder.
Some stuff from DH wiki: Htaccess - DreamHost

You will need to edit it several times during the creation of your sBlog farm. For example the WPMU sitemap google xml plugin needs to edit this file.

You need to talk with your support if you don't know how to do this. .htaccess is a hidden file and its name begins with a dot. Some ftp clients won't see it and for example MacOSX won't see it by default. Everything is explained in the wiki.

When you are comfortable with editing your custom php.ini and .htaccess you can go to the next part of my tutorial. In the future we will also talk about cron jobs.

MMarko

On most hosts users are not allowed to change or alter php.ini specially if they are on shared host because this is possible security issue.

If you have WPMU on shared host this usually means that it is not big and that will work on default settings. If you need to modify php.ini the best bet would be to get yourself a dedicated server.

Dreamhost will surely ban you due to resource / cpu limitation they have in their TOS.

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redhatslut

no, they will not. Users on shared hostings are allowed to use custom php.ini, not to edit the servers one.

If you run your feeds in a reasonable way, they will not ban you. I have about 200 blogs on dreamhost, but each goes on 2-3 feeds and the feeds are processed separately. I will explain all this later. If you do everything with caution you will be ok, and after you make some money you can go to dedicated hosting.

MMarko

I meant if you change execution times and memory limits there is high possibility you will go over their resource limits. You have 200 blogs with 600 feeds on 1 account?

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redhatslut

yes. Changing php.ini for execution time is just a precaution.

All those feeds are processed separately. After the blogs are populated with content for the first time, the updates won't take much resources.

i also have there about 30 other sites.

Rofl

Well, that begs the question, why are you changing resource limits then?

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redhatslut

rarely it may occur that there will be some kind of delay and we dont wont to get an error which will break our chain of updates and force us to do something manually

Dutch Harry

I am sure that a lot of shared hosting company's wont let you chance the php.ini, because of the high risk it involves

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redhatslut

yeah, so if you can ask them before you buy an account. WPMU pretty much needs changing php.ini. There maybe more stuff later involving mass plugins which may need changing this file :P

Dutch Harry

I think that is a really good tip, that people check their hosting before getting a account, do your research!

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redhatslut

just a good example from me:

BlueHost, which is a decent hosting and is promoted on the wordpress.org page, but it doesn't support Wildcard DNS, so it is no good for WPMU

MMarko

No, it does not, if php.ini options are properly set before (at least for most WPMU installs).

Anyway I think you're risking with that much blogs on Dreamhost.

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redhatslut

it depends on what you want to do with your WPMU,
we will see. If anything bad happens they contact me and we solve the problem. They have understanding customer service.